Bourne looks to cut lifeguards

In response to budget cuts, Bourne Recreation Director Krisanne Caron has proposed halving the number of beaches patrolled by lifeguards from four to just Sagamore Beach and Monument Beach this summer, a move that will require a staff of only about 15, she said.

On her desk sat a blue folder labeled “2013 Lifeguards,” along with a stack of envelopes and letters to inform last year's 28-member staff of the tryout dates for the coming beach season.

The tryouts are still weeks away, but they are already shaping up to be more competitive than last year's. In response to budget cuts, Caron has proposed halving the number of beaches patrolled by lifeguards from four to just Sagamore Beach and Monument Beach this summer, a move that will require a staff of only about 15, she said.

“It's not an easy decision. We've been through a lot getting our lifeguards back on our beaches,” Caron said. “It's not a decision we take lightly. But this, unfortunately, is where we're looking.”

The proposal – which would cut the Recreation Department budget from $210,000 to nearly $170,000, or 20 percent – comes three years after Bourne's decision in 2011 to become the only Cape town without lifeguards on any of its seven saltwater and two freshwater beaches. Like the tide receding from and coming back to shore, lifeguards returned to four Bourne beaches a year later.

With the service maintained at Monument Beach and Sagamore Beach, Caron said Bourne residents would still have the comfort of lifeguards on both sides of the Cape Cod Canal. Based upon head counts taken by lifeguards three times a day, Caron said those beaches were also deemed the most frequented in town, adding that swimming lessons would continue to be available at Monument Beach.

But that reasoning gave little comfort to 57-year-old Gray Gables resident Roberta Dwyer, who has been a vocal advocate in recent years for maintaining lifeguards at town beaches and bringing them to the beach she can see from her Gilder Road home.

After missing the town meeting in 2011, Dwyer said she was appalled to learn that Bourne had chosen to end all lifeguard service. In a coastal community like Bourne, she said, that service should “be a given.”

“I don't know what the answer is in this town, seriously. For the amount of money you're paying, which really isn't that much, you're protecting people and giving kids jobs,” Dwyer said. “To me, it's like they're playing with fire.”

At a town meeting in 2012, Dwyer successfully petitioned for an additional $25,000 that added Hen Cove to the list of beaches with lifeguards. She initially had hoped that money would also fund lifeguards at Gray Gables Beach, but the selectmen later determined that it would be able to cover only Hen Cove.

“The thing is that I'll probably go to town meeting again,” Dwyer said Thursday. “There's a lot of things that can happen when you're swimming. You just never know when something can happen.”

Caron said many residents prefer beaches without lifeguards, noting that even those beaches have markers to outline the swimming areas. But without lifeguards to enforce those swimming zones, Dwyer said, children swim too far out from shore.

Selectman Peter Meier noted that state funding has not been finalized – and that “through the budget process, things can change.”

“If that's the case, we'll need to look at what our priorities are. That might bring it back to four (beaches),” he said. “In my opinion, lifeguards are essential. Some people feel lifeguards are overprotection. It depends on who you're speaking with.”